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Namibia: Ivory Debate Resumes This Week
The Namibian (Windhoek)
October 3, 2006
Absalom Shigwedha
Windhoek
ANIMAL rights groups continue to oppose requests by Namibia and two other southern African countries to be allowed to have a one-off ivory sale.
One such group is the Survival Species Network (SSN).
Crisis in Sudan
On Sunday, a Namibian delegation headed by Environment and Tourism Permanent Secretary Dr Malan Lindeque left for Geneva, Switzerland, to attend the 54th Standing Committee meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).
The meeting, which started yesterday and ends on Friday, will decide whether to allow Namibia, Botswana and South Africa to sell a stockpile of 60 tonnes of ivory, which was tentatively approved by Cites in 2002.
Yesterday, SNN President Will Travers was quoted as saying: "We remain seriously concerned that the basic conditions for resuming trade in ivory have not been met."
Travers said that the re-opening of ivory exports would send a dangerous message to poachers and illegal ivory dealers that unfettered international ivory trade had resumed.
Last month, a Namibian conservation scientist, Louisa Mupetami with the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, told The Namibian that they were hopeful that Namibia would get approval from Cites.
Mupetameni is also part of the Namibian delegation to the meeting.
At a Cites Conference of Parties held in Santiago, Chile, in 2002, Namibia was allowed to sell 10 000 kg of ivory but under strict conditions.
But this, Namibia was told, could only take place once the country had implemented tighter conservation measures which would convince Cites' Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) programme that an ivory auction would not open the door to poaching.
The sale, which was planned for the beginning of 2004, has yet to take place.
Countries that are parties to Cites also insisted that MIKE must report baseline information on the levels of illegal killing of elephants and that potential ivory importers such as China and Japan were verified to have sufficient internal controls in place to prevent illegal ivory sales.
MIKE'S database report on elephant range states will be tabled at the Geneva meeting.
MIKE'S overall goal is to provide information needed for elephant range states to make appropriate management and enforcement decisions and to build institutional capacity for the long-term management of their elephant populations.
The African elephant was placed on Cites Appendix I in 1989 after wholesale poaching of the animals.
Cites Appendix I is a group of highly endangered species in whose products trade is not allowed.
Namibia last sold ivory in 1998 and the N$3,9 million generated was deposited into the Game Products Trust Fund, which supports projects and research, particularly in community conservancies.
Cites came into force in July 1975 and Namibia became a party to it in 1991.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200610030036.html
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Ezine
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Southern Africa: UN-Backed Treaty Suspends Ivory Exports Due to Deficient Monitoring of Poaching
UN News Service (New York)
October 5, 2006
The United Nations-backed body overseeing trade in endangered species today suspended the export of 60 tonnes of ivory from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa because of shortcomings in the system to monitor elephant populations and poaching.
The Geneva-based Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) agreed in principle to the sales in 2002 on condition that the Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) system establish up-to-date and comprehensive baseline data on poaching and population levels.
Today's meeting of the CITES Standing Committee determined that this condition has not yet been satisfied and the sales may not go forward at this time.
CITES, which is administered by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), banned the international commercial ivory trade in 1989. In 1997, recognizing that some southern African elephant populations are healthy and well managed, it allowed Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to make a one-time sale to Japan totalling 50 tonnes. Those sales took place in 1999 and earned some $5 million.
The now suspended sales authorized in 2002 allowed the export of 30 tonnes from South Africa, 20 tonnes from Botswana and 10 tonnes from Namibia.
In 2004, requests by several southern African countries for annual ivory quotas were turned down by the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention. All legal sales of ivory derive from existing stocks gathered from elephants that have died as a result of natural causes or culling.
The long-running debate over elephants has focused on the benefits that income from ivory sales may bring to conservation and to local communities living side by side with large and often dangerous animals against concerns that such sales may increase poaching. The baseline data will make it possible to determine objectively what impact future ivory sales may have on elephant populations and poaching.
In a related decision, the Standing Committee decided that Japan had established a sufficiently strong domestic trade control system to be a trading partner allowed to purchase the ivory when sales eventually proceed.
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